This invention relates to electronically implemented games of chance and, more particularly, to data communications in electronic lottery-type games. The invention encompasses a method and apparatus for facilitating game play in an electronic lottery-type game, and a program product for facilitating the play of the game.
Lottery-type games are popular sources of revenue for governmental agencies and charitable organizations. As used in this disclosure, a xe2x80x9clottery-type gamexe2x80x9d comprises a game having a predetermined number of payouts or prizes and a determined chance of winning. For example, a lottery-type game may comprise a scratch-off or pull-tab game having a number of preprinted tickets. Each ticket has some type of printed result indicator which indicates if the particular ticket is a winning ticket and, if the ticket is a winning ticket, indicates the prize or payout. The result indicator is commonly covered with some opaque cover material which may be scratched off or otherwise removed to reveal the indicator below. Thus, the ticket purchaser cannot see if the ticket is a winning ticket until purchasing the ticket and removing the opaque cover material.
Lottery-type games may be implemented through computer-based, electronic systems. Prior related U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/479,975, describes an electronic, multi-level lottery type game in which the play of the game may imitate a regular casino game. However, the game described in this prior application is played with pools of game play records having predetermined outcomes similar to standard paper ticket based lottery games. Thus, the game provides the excitement of a regular casino-type game such as draw poker, for example, but with the security, verifiability, and fixed chances of winning provided by paper ticket based lottery games.
Electronic lottery-type games may be implemented using a central processing system for storing the various pools of game play records and for distributing the game play records to player terminals which are in communication with the central processing system. The player terminals provide a display device for displaying information to the player, an arrangement for accepting a wager, and an arrangement for providing inputs from the player. A player enters the electronically implemented lottery-type game by making a game play request at a player terminal. In response to a game play request entered by the player, the central processing system sends information regarding a particular game play record to the player terminal. The player terminal then displays the information regarding the game play, and, in the case of the system described in prior related application Ser. No. 09/479,975, allows the player to make a response. This response enters the player in another or second level lottery-type game and results in information regarding a second level game play being communicated from the central processing system to the player terminal.
The prior electronic game described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,324,035 to Morris et al. incorporates all information required to define a game play into a video ticket. The incorporated information includes data for the various graphic symbols to be displayed to the player through the player terminal. This arrangement results in relatively large amounts of data having to be transferred to the player terminal for each game play.
The prior electronic game described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,494,197 to Troy et al. utilizes a counter register and winning ticket table at a central processor. In response to a play request from a player terminal, the value in the counter register is incremented and then the winning ticket table is queried to determine if the resulting count corresponds to a winning electronic ticket. The central processor then sends back to the player terminal a packet of information including a winning or losing code as appropriate. The winning code includes the amount won on the play. The Troy Patent also suggests using the amount won to produce a graphic representation of the result at the player terminal. Using the amount won to control the graphics displayed at a player terminal, however, constrains the payout structure and graphics available in the game.
It is an object of the invention to provide a system which overcomes the above-described deficiencies and others in prior electronic lottery-type games. More particularly, it is an object of the invention to provide a method which reduces the amount of data transferred to the player terminals to communicate a game play in an electronic lottery-type game, and which provides flexibility in payout schedules as well as flexibility in the types of graphics employed in the game. A further object of the invention is to provide an apparatus and program product to implement the method.
In order to accomplish these objects, the pools of game play records used in the lottery-type games are stored at each player terminal in the network. The network includes at least one player terminal and at least one central processing system. The central processing system is responsible for receiving game play requests from the player terminals and, in response to each game play request, providing game play record identifying information to the player terminal from which the game play request originated. This game play record identifying information allows the player terminal to access the identified game play record and use information from the game play record to communicate to the player the result of the game play.
In the preferred form of the invention, the central processing system maintains record identifiers. Each record identifier is uniquely associated with a particular game play record in a pool of game play records stored at one or more player terminals. The central processing system provides game play record identifying information to a player terminal by communicating a particular record identifier to the player terminal.
In this arrangement in which game play records are stored at the player terminals, the only information communicated to a player terminal in response to a game play request is the record identifier and, in some forms of the invention, a pool identifier. This pool identifier may be incorporated into the record identifier or may be a separate index or identifier value. The amount of information which must be communicated to a player terminal in response to a game play request is minimized by using record identifiers to identify or point to game play records already stored at the player terminal. This helps ensure that network communications do not interfere with the play of the game.
Each player terminal used in a lottery-type game network according to the invention includes a game pool storage device for storing at least one and usually a number of different pools of game play records. Each player terminal also includes a record access arrangement. This record access arrangement uses the record identifier communicated from the central processing system to access a particular game play record in a pool and obtain information stored in the game play record. A display processor at the player terminal then uses the information acquired from the particular game play record to produce display commands which direct a display at the player terminal to produce a graphic representation. This graphic representation displays the results of the game play to the player, and may be designed to imitate a casino-type game as described in the prior related application Ser. No. 09/479,975.
A central processing system according to the invention includes a game play processor and an identifier arrangement for maintaining the record identifiers employed in the system. The game play processor is adapted to receive game play requests from the player terminals in the network and to select a different record identifier for communication back to the player terminal in response to each respective game play request. The primary purpose of the central processing system is to service game play requests and coordinate the use of game play records as between the various player terminals in the network. In particular, the coordination provided by the game play processor at the central computer system ensures that each game player record in a game pool is used only once.
The identifier arrangement at the central processing system may maintain the record identifiers in the form of a set of indexes, with each index value identifying or pointing to a different game play record in a given pool of records. In one form of the invention the index value may be included within the game play record itself and a duplicate pool of game play records may be stored at the central processing system. In another preferred form of the invention, each record identifier may comprise a counter value. In this case the identifier arrangement may utilize a counter value which is incremented for each received game play request. The resulting counter value is returned to the player terminal from which the game play request originated and is used to access a particular game play record.
The invention is preferably implemented using computer software code executed by suitable processors associated with both the central processing system and each player terminal. Program code executed at the central processing system includes request processing program code for processing game play requests and identifier program code responsible for maintaining the record identifiers. Program code executed at a player terminal includes record storage code causing the pools of game play records to be stored at the respective player terminal and record accessing code for accessing the desired game play record using a record identifier.
Utilizing record identifiers to access game play records stored at the individual player terminals according to the present invention reduces the amount of data which must be communicated from the central processing system to the player terminal to respond to each game play request. The present record identifier arrangement also provides a great deal of flexibility in the play of the lottery-type games and flexibility in payout schedules used in the games. In particular, the use of record identifiers according to the invention facilitates the play of multi-level, interrelated lottery-type games which can be used together to closely imitate casino-type games while providing all of the verifiability of lottery-type games.
These and other objects, advantages, and features of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments, considered along with the accompanying drawings.